Swatch & Compare- Black Glitter Polishes: Part 1

Remember how in my last post on 17 Cosmetic's Dazzle the Night swatches, I said that I had a Rimmel nail polish similar to the Glimmer in the Night polish? Well, I thought I'd do a little Swatch & Compare!

And I was wrong about them being similar.Oh so very wrong....

On pinky and index finger: Glimmer in the Night

On MIDDLE finger only: Rimmel Precious Stones in Diamond Dust.

Yeah, that's right, only the middle finger is the Rimmel polish. As you can see, it is nothing like the 17 Cosmetics one. Diamond Dust is more of a grey colour, the silver glitter in it is much finer, and it has HOLOGRAPHIC particles in it. I like it a lot. So much in fact, that I had previously bought a China Glaze polish that was an EXACT dupe. 

Yep, silly old me. In all of the pictures in this post, on my wedding finger is China Glaze Some Like It Haute from the Eye Candy collection. 

Although these two are identical once dried on the nail, the formula of these two was dramatically different. Some Like It Haute was thin and runny and required three coats, whereas Diamond Dust was thick and required only the two coats. Both dry matte as you can see, so a top coat is essential for these thirsty polishes. I haven't applied top coat just so you can see that these two are dupes. 

What do you think of these polishes? Now I know that the 17 Cosmetics Glimmer in the Night polish is unique in my collection, I'm really kinda gutted that it is a LimEd. Boo. 

P.S Sorry for the dry cuticle situation in this post. My cuticle oil is playing hide and seek with me :/

Jubilation Celebrations

Hey everyone!

Well, unless you were living under a rock, you will know that it was the Queen's Diamond jubilee last week. The UK was awash with jubilee limited editions of virtually everything. Vaseline lip therapy, M&Ms, Clarins Hand Lotion.... the list goes on (and on.)

Anyways, the one limited edition product that struck my eye was the gorgeous, glittering Nails Inc Jubilee top coat. Observe:-

I took pics of Jubilee in various different lights so you guys can see just how beautiful it is! Jubilee is a red, blue and silver glitter in a clear varnish. I layered it over some blue, red and white nail paints to achieve a full on, patriotic look! These varnishes are: Rimmel I <3 Lasting Finish in Azure (blue), Nails Inc Milan (red) and Barry M Nail Paint in Matt White. I particularly love how Jubilee looks layered on top of the Matt White, as it really makes the colours of the glitter 'pop'.

And of course, the jubilee celebrations wouldn't have been complete without cake! I recently received a Jubilee special edition of Cake Decorating magazine, which had these beautiful cupcake wrappers and flags, and Sainsburys had the blue, red and white non-pareils on special offer! Here are my home made Jubilee cupcakes:-

So I'd like to know, how did you celebrate her Maj's jubilee?

Another 99p manicure!

Remember the star spangled manicure that I did here? Well, I was in my local branch of discount bookstore The Works and was rummaging around the crafts section when I find these:-

Wiggle eyes! Or Goggly Eyes, which is what I know them as1 I used to make silly greetings cards with these stuck on them when I was in primary school! Fast forward 21 years and I still have a use for these little suckers...

My Monster Mani!

Here are the varnishes that I used: Pinky finger - No 7 Stay Perfect Poolside Blue, Ring finger- OPI Did It On 'Em, Middle finger- Rimmel 60 Seconds Blue My Mind, Index finger- Ciate Paint Pot Jelly Bean.

I don't know why my pinky looks so solemn! 

Monsters Inc was the inspiration behing my ring finger.





What'ya lookin' at?

Needless to say, this was the easiest mani to do! A lick of paint, and then a tiny bit of nail glue to fix the eyes down! I used the Models Own nail art pens to add the details. Simples!

There was also a pack of wiggle eyes with eyelashes available at The Works so keep your googly eyes on my page to see them soon!

Beauty Products I'm Loving This Week

Hey everybody! Hope you're all well. Today is a rather mixed post, because I am going to show you the beauty products that are either a) rocking my world creatively or b) products that I simply cannot live without!

So without further ado, here's the first:-

Illamasqua Fundamental Palette

Without flash

With flash

Shades from l-r clockwise Powder Shadow in Hype, Liquid Metal in Surge, Powder Shadow in Inception and Cream Pigment in Bedaub.

I absolutely adore this palette and have already created a number of looks with it, which I will be posting over the next couple of days. I love how wonderfully bold the colours are in this palette, yet they are surprisingly versatile and I will show you how to use these colours to create a beautiful daytime look. Stay tuned!

Rimmel Wake Me Up Foundation and Concealer

If you haven't already tried this foundation, you NEED to. Just to give a bit of context on my skin, it is combination/dry, with an oily t-zone, prone to breakouts (especially hormonal breakouts), but I do get a bit of dryness around the jawline, and on my forehead. With this in mind, I normally opt for foundations specifically created for oily skin types, but there was something that particularly attracted me to this foundation... probably the orange packaging! I won't go into too much detail here, as I would like to do a more detailed post, but I will say this much. Wake Me Up is an incredible foundation. It gives my skin a healthy, radiant boost, and makes it look plump and fresh. It also kinda covers over my dry patches and doesn't make them glaringly obvious like Double Wear or Dream Matte Mousse can do. The concealer is also pretty good, as it can be used to cover both dark circles and blemishes.

No7 Beautiful Skin Melting Gel Cleanser

No7 has recently revamped their skincare range by renaming and repackaging their products and in this instance, created a brand new product. The packaging recommends this gel cleanser for normal/dry skin, and just lately I have been experiencing quite a lot of dry patches around my jaw and my cheeks have been quite dehydrated. I knew I didn't want to change to a heavier moisturiser, so a richer cleanser like this seemed to be a good solution to boost moisture in my skin without making it too greasy. This cleanser starts as a gel, which then melts away to an oil, which turns rather milky when washed away. It smells DIVINE. It cleans my skin relatively effectively without drying it out. In short, I love it. I look forward to washing my face with this. 'Nuff said.

Garnier Intensive 7 Days Hand Cream for Dry/Extra Dry Hands

I picked this hand cream up when it was on offer in Superdrug. I suffer with dry skin on my hands, my cuticles can be particularly haggard at times (too much contact with nail varnish remover!), and my nails sometimes peel because they are dehydrated. That's why I picked the dry/extra dry formula (there were about two other hand creams in the range). Oh, that and I love the scent of shea butter. As you can see in the pic above, this is a rich hand cream, but it spreads really well over the skin and it quickly absorbed, which is great because I really hate sticky, thich hand creams that take, like, forever to sink in! I recommend this hand cream- great price, great formula and lovely fresh scent.

Revlon Liquid Quick Dry

Since becoming a beauty blogger, who mainly blogs about nail art and nail varnishes, I tend to be waiting around a lot for polish to dry! When I saw this in Boots, I pretty much added it to my basket without hesitation. And it rocks. It dries freshly painted nails to be touch dry within a couple of minutes, and within the hour, they are pretty much nudge proof depending on the drying ability of the colour itself. It gives the nails a glossy finish, and it smells nice. Bonus.

L'Oreal Elvive Nutri Gloss Crystal Sparkling Shampoo

Without flash

With flash

I don't even really need to tell you why I decided to try this, it speaks for itself. A sparkling shampoo. It just kinda bounced off the shelf and into my basket! (I'm such a sucker for packaging!) On a semi-serious note, I normally use the Nutri Gloss light, with the pink bottle and green band, as I have mid length hair that gets greasy quickly, but I really wanted to try this new addition to the Elvive range. To be honest, I can't really tell the difference between the two shampoos, but this certainly looks prettier in my bathroom, and for that shallow reason only, I am gonna keep on buying this!

So there are my current beauty essentials. Are any of these products in your make up bag or on your bathroom shelf? If not, please leave a comment to tell me what your current beauty essentials are!

Food Inspired Nails Part 1- Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes

Hey guys, sorry for my absence, I have recently been visiting my family up in the North West, in a small town named Congleton. You may have heard of it, but you probably won't have. (It's that small)
Anyhoo, Mr Claw requested some Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes last week to cheer him up (Masters dissertation- say no more), and here's how they turned out:

Yum! I took the recipie from the Hummingbird Bakery Cupcakes and Muffins book, and I think it they turned out pretty nice! They tasted lush, despite the fact that Strawberry is probably my least favourite berry. Mr Claw loved them too, and said that next time, I was to bake cupcakes that I wanted! (Oh! How generous!)

It was after I made these cupcakes that I realised I could do a really simple, but effective nail art design based on the strawberry. I had recently bought some new nail art pens and hadn't taken them for a test drive yet, and every nail polish lover has a basic red creme so I created these designs:-

Not bad, eh? As I said, these are really simple designs, but I think they are effective and eye catching. In hindsight, I'm not so sure of the middle finger pink strawberry, as I think I should have stuck to the primary colours. I love the thumb though! Tasty!

Here is a list of all the lacquers I used to create this look: Barry M Nail Paint in Matte White, MUA Cosmetics Nail  Varnish in U & I, Rimmel Lycra Pro in Show Off, Nails Inc Nail Varnish in Milan, Red, Green and Yellow Nail Art Pens (I got mine from Argos!)

What do you guys think? Let me know! 

A 99p manicure! (Otherwise known as rainbow coloured, star spangled nails!)

A new retail complex opened last week, about a ten minutes walk away from my home. It was a nice day, so me and Mr Claw decided to talk baby Claw for a stroll up there. The retail park featured a new behemoth Tesco Extra, which I had hoped would have some unusual, Tesco exclusive nail varnishes. No such luck, as all the Tesco own brand nail varnishes were boring, predictable colours.

As we were leaving, I quickly nipped into the 99p store, in search of exotic foreign toiletries that aren't stocked in Boots or Superdrug. (Y'know the ones that kinda look familiar, but are either a different scent from your usual shower gel, or are in a completely different language, bar the brand name?) However, that is when I stumbled across this little kit:-

So, in this kit is a nail file, cuticle stick, some nail glue and six vials of little holographic stars. The pink tube has hearts, not stars. What I liked is that the stars are different shapes, as you will see in a second. I loved the colour of these, and in my mind, there was one particular varnish collection that I had to try these out on:

Left to Right: Apricot Punch, Peppermint, Show Off, Ultra Violet, Aqua Cool. (All varnishes are Rimmel London)



Last summer, Rimmel London brought out these four Lycra Pro Summer colours. These are bright, sherbet colours, and they instantly caught my eye last year, so I was glad for an opportunity to finally swatch them. I just needed another colour for my thumb, and picked the I <3 Lasting Finish Fruities in Apricot Punch, a colour which I felt co-ordinated well with the other four colours. Here is my creation:

Sooo pretty! Have a look at those holo stars!! Luckily, there was a corresponding star colur to each nail varnish! Here are close up shots of the nails with the bottles, so you can have a better look at the colours.

I <3 Lasting Finish Fruities in Apricot Punch. A lovely warm apricot creme. I love how holo the stars look here! The varnish applied well, this is three coats. When dry, the varnish smells faintly of apricots, not a horrible chemical smell, which a lot of perfumed nail varnises can (more of that in my next post!) The smell does eventually fade away, and is gone by the time top coat is applied. The brush on this varnish is fine, and and as I said, the varnish applies well, but definately needs the third coat to reach full opacity.

Lycra Pro in Spearmint. The Lycra Pro nail varnishes have a wide, flat brush that is super easy to use. The formula on these was superb! I have worn these in the past, and can confirm that they last for days. I seriously love these varnishes. On my nail is three coats. You can get away with two, but I did a third coat to act as an adhesive for the stars. I used this technique on all the subsequent nails. Spearmint is a lovely cool mint creme. Beautiful.

Lycra Pro in Ultra Violet. A lovely soft purple creme. I don't mind sharing with you that this was the varnish I was wearing at the time I went into labour! 41 hours laterand it was still perfect. My midwife even commented on how lovely it was....



Lycra Pro in Aqua Cool. A cool, aqua blue. Pretty much what it says on the tin.

Lycra Pro in Show Off. A medium bright pink creme. I don't normall fly for pink nail varnishes, but I LOVE this shade. It just complemets the other colours so well.

So what do you think of this manicure? Not nail art per se, but when it looks this good, why worry? I always believe you can create great nail looks using stickers, decals, rhinestones, sequins... the list is endless. Plus this manicure is great for the not so steady handed!

After this, I am mega tempted to try more Rimmel Lycra Pro nail varnishes. They really are easy to use, and from what I've seen, there's lots of different colours to pick from. I also can't wait to use the little holo hearts that came in my 99p pack. Can you think of any polish that would go well with these?